BANGALORE: Sheryl Sandberg is the current COO of Facebook, who is making a mark with helping Facebook increase its business potentials in India. She is reported to have already arrived in India making this her maiden trip to the sub continent.

Her visit to India comes at a time when the nation has seen the rise of social media as an important forum for public opinion and with a new Modi-led government that is social media savvy. The newly elected PM Narendra Modi, is an active user of Facebook with the second highest number of followers of over 1.8crore fans, after the U.S. President Barack Obama. He is also very much active on twitter and encourages his ministers to be active on social media as much as possible.

With a government that is into social media, Sheryl expects to have a stronger market for Facebook in India. Her visit will be to strengthen and chart out future growth strategies for Facebook and apart from meeting the PM, will meet other government officials. She will make her first stop at Facebook headquarters in Hyderabad to meet with developers and later will hold a media round table conference. However, an official of the company has said that they are not in a position to share all the details of her visit yet. 

India is the second largest user of Facebook with over a 100 million users and has a gross profit of 75.64 crore rupees, according to the financial year reports by the registrar of companies, ministry of corporate affairs. Facebook is looking not just to increase its number of users but also the revenue it expects from a market so big by the next financial year. The COO’s meet with the PM and other government officials will be towards increasing the growth of Facebook in India both financially and growth in users.

Her visit will be the first by any ‘chief’ from the Facebook Management board. Though Mark Zuckerberg has been seen in China, his visit to India is still expected. This is not her first visit to an Asian country as she has already travelled to Japan and South Korea. 

Sheryl is one of the world’s most high profiled woman executives, who is an author and an activist too. Prior to Facebook, she served in Google as the vice-president of the global online sales and operations, and as the chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Treasury under the Bill Clinton Administration.